A Model of Communicative and Hierarchical Foundations of High Reliability Organizing in Wildland Firefighting Teams

Abstract

Organizational hierarchy is an inescapable aspect of many exemplary high reliability organizations (HROs). As organizations begin to adopt HRO theorizing to improve practice, it is increasingly important to explain how HRO principles-which assume the hallmarks of a flat hierarchy-can be understood and enacted in rigidly stratified organizations. We propose a preliminary theoretical model suggesting how various supervisorsubordinate and work group communication patterns and practices enable members to navigate hierarchy to achieve high reliability. We test the model using structural equation modeling on a sample of N = 574 U.S. wildland firefighters from three federal agencies. Results suggest how organizational members might overcome common hierarchy-based constraints to HRO through considering how leaders throughout a chain of command communicate to cultivate the necessary cross-level awareness of an operation, and ways in which supervisors, members, and groups might cultivate interactional cultures with respectful affect.

Revisiting high-reliability organizing: obstacles to safety and resilience

“…Attempts to identify the processes that contribute to mindful high-reliability organizing focus on enacting five principles. These five principles, developed by Weick and Sutcliffe (2001, have become the most prominent model for delineating HRO effectiveness and pinpointing communicative processes that undermine these principles ( Jahn and Black, 2017). Each principle is comprised of a set of behaviors that promotes reliability, resilience, and safety.…”

The effect of organisational context on group work: evidence in the Rioja wine industry in Spain

“…As to organisational context, studies have demonstrated that information exchange about tasks within the group produce significant benefits to the group work’s own functioning (Jahn and Black, 2017). The importance of information in groups can be attested by the reduction of costs at work (Cummings, 2004), by positive effects on the outcome and in the group’s creativity abilities (Jehn and Bendersky, 2003) and by the development of organisational learning (Mallén et al , 2016).…”

Positive Deviance Case Selection as a Method for Organizational Communication: A Rationale, How-to, and Illustration

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